10 Great Webmaster Training Sites

Becoming a webmaster can be a challenge for anyone, with many design and coding skills to acquire, SEO techniques to apply and Web-related business skills to learn. Reading the latest books on the subject might not always do the trick, as the Internet changes so fast that the strategies you successfully applied yesterday could be entirely outdated today.

Fortunately, there are plenty of Web resources that address this problem. The list below gives an outline of some of the best learning resources for Web masters, developers and designers. They will teach you everything there is to building a successful online presence and help you stay up to date with any new developments.

1. Treehouse

Treehouse uses instructional videos to teach designers to build professional websites using HTML and CSS, create apps for Android and iPhone, and code using PHP and Ruby on Rails. To top it all off, it provides training on the overall strategies of starting your own business, making it a one-stop shop for any entrepreneur.

Treehouse does charge a fee for its training services, ranging from $250 to $490 a year, and you can only watch short previews of its videos without a subscription. Once you sign up, you get access to more than 1,000 instructional videos, user forums as well as an engine for coding practice, among other features. The interface is very interactive, allowing you take coding challenges, complete quizzes and earn badges for progress.

2. W3Schools

Even though W3Schools does not have as nice of an interface as Treehouse, and its instruction is in the form of text rather than videos, it is a still a great resource for learning HTML and CSS, providing this information and more for free. A lot of the website’s training materials target beginner designers, so if you are new to Web development, but ready to switch your content editor for some basic CSS and HTML, this is a great place to start. One of the great features W3Schools provides is a place to experiment with code without having to leave the website.

3. Google Developers University Consortium

Another good resource for beginners, Google Developers University Consortium has replaced Google Code University several months ago. It uses a mix of video and text instruction to provide a lot of useful information on Web development, programming languages and creating Android apps. It allows for convenient access to several code hosting and collaboration tools, and its Conferences feature provides multiple daily workshops and seminars conducted in different languages on a variety of subjects. You can join an ongoing conference anytime or sign up for a future one, and the features are entirely free of charge.

4. Sitepoint

For beginners and intermediate-level designers and developers, Sitepoint is a great training resource, covering everything from HTML to PHP to Ruby. The website has a separate section for selling eBooks on the same topics, but its text-based online tutorials are free and just as helpful. The website is very user-friendly and easy to navigate.

5. Lynda.com

Using the same training method as Treehouse, Lynda.com teaches its users with the help of instructional videos. You can get a free preview of every course before you sign up, but getting full access requires an annual fee of $250 to $375, depending on the plan you choose. The website has been around for 18 years and has 2,000+ videos in its archives, with new courses added weekly. Its subjects include web design, animation, video and audio editing, business training, ecommerce and SEO, to name but a few.

6. Smashing Magazine

This Web design blog is intended for users who are somewhat more advanced in their skills, although it does have HTML and CSS tutorials to start with as well. Other subject areas include JavaScript, mobile apps for Android and iPhone, graphic design programs, WordPress and many others. Similarly to what Sitepoint is doing, Smashing Magazine also has its online store, where you can download more than 60 ebooks for $99. All of the training articles on the website are free.

7. WebPlatform.org

WebPlatform.org is a newer entrant into the field of Web training, but its clean, well-organized website is great for finding the resources you need.

WebPlatform.org describes itself as a community of developers exchanging information that’s useful for any platform or browser type. It describes its target market as creative professionals. The website is a free platform where Web designers go to collaborate, and share ideas and recent developments in the field. The website was put together by W3C and has an impressive list of “stewards,” who support it through “content, people, funding, and other contributions.” Some of the names on the list are Adobe, Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft.

8. Creative Bloq

Creative Bloq doesn’t teach any coding, but rather concentrates on covering every creative aspect you as a webmaster might need to know. This includes 3D animation, typography, Web and graphic design, illustration, as well as some general business and career advice. Besides its training articles, the website features interviews with industry experts, instructional videos and a jobs boards. All of the training features are free, but you can pay to subscribe to one of the three magazines that Creative Bloq produces.

9. LearnStreet

Another newcomer in the training field, LearnStreet was launched last year and is still expanding its library of resources. It currently provides beginner-level courses on Ruby, JavaScript and Python. It has a nice interface and a lot of interactive features for its students. You can practice your skills in its Code Garage Projects section, in categories such as Tools, Games and Algorithms. LearnStreet also allows the more experienced Web developers to teach classes through its website.

10. Udemy

Udemy is one of the more established names in the industry. It offers webmasters a large database of resources with an impressive 8,000 courses on everything from coding to graphic design to business training. Udemy’s approach to learning new technology is similar to that of a real university, where each course provides hundreds of text and video lectures, final projects and a multitude of other features. An average course runs anywhere from $35 to $500, which might be a problem for someone who wants to learn more than one skill. Udemy does have a lot of free courses as well though, and chances are you might find something you like among them.

Keith is a long time affiliate marketer who has recently entered the network affiliate marketing space. He is well versed in the "technical" end of the web. For the most part Keith has stopped hand coding web sites and uses WordPress as his primary CMS.

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